The pharmaceutical company Moderna on Monday announced via press release that the Covid-19 vaccine it has been working on has shown 94.5% effectiveness. The company is one of several that has received billions of tax dollars from the Trump administration to develop a vaccine as part of the President’s Operation Warp Speed. Moderna’s announcement comes a week after Pfizer in collaboration with a company called BioNTech declared that its vaccine –which is not part of Trump’s operation—showed very promising results at more than 90% effectiveness. The New York Times explained that, “Pfizer and Moderna each announced the findings in news releases, not in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and the companies have not yet disclosed the detailed data that would allow outside experts to evaluate their claims. Therefore, the results cannot be considered conclusive. The studies are continuing, and the figures on effectiveness may change.” Stocks rose on Monday based on the Moderna vaccine announcement. 

President elect Joe Biden has been iced out of the transition process by the current occupant of the White House who refuses to accept his election loss. Biden’s team is reportedly meeting directly with vaccine makers to remedy this failure. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases lamented the situation saying, “Of course it would be better if we could start working with them.” Most critically the incoming Biden administration needs to know how the Department of Health and Human Services plans on distributing the vaccine across the nation once all studies are complete and the Food and Drug Administration signs off. Virus cases are off the charts in the U.S. with a whopping 11 million cases of infection so far. There were a million new cases in the past week alone suggesting an exponential rise in the rate of infections. The large figure means that most Americans now know someone who has been infected. Researchers estimate that about a third of all Americans know someone who has died from the virus. 

As states around the country consider new shutdowns to stop the spread of the virus, President Trump’s controversial coronavirus adviser Scott Atlas shockingly told the residents of Michigan to “rise up” against restrictions that Gov. Gretchen Whittmer announced on Sunday night. Whittmer, who was the target of a thwarted kidnapping by a Trump supporter, responded saying, “We know that the White House likes to single us out here in Michigan, me out in particular. I’m not going to be bullied into not following reputable scientists and medical professionals.” Meanwhile given the lack of federal government aid to help them tide over the economic impact, businesses are rushing to lobby against more restrictions. Other states joining Michigan are Washington, Oregon, and New Mexico, as well as the

FEATURING COREY BRETTSHNEIDER – Donald Trump continues to dig his heels in about losing the race for President to Joe Biden and has been lobbing one unsuccessful legal challenge after another. As Arizona’s official election tally handed that state’s electoral college votes to Biden as well, the race seems to be a landslide win for the former Vice President. And while the nation is now all but assured that Biden will take the helm of the White House in January, how deep will Trump’s damage be to the nation as he leaves office?

Read his latest article in the Guardian is called ‘Don’t underestimate the threat to American democracy at this moment,’ HERE. 

Corey Brettschneider, professor of political science at Brown University. He is the author of When the State Speaks, What Should It Say: How Democracies Can Protect Expression and Promote Equality. His latest books are The Oath and the Office: A Guide to the Constitution for Future Presidents and The Decisions and Dissents of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

FEATURING VICTOR PICKARD – The media landscape in the U.S. is rapidly shifting during a year that was a turning point for the nation, socially and politically. Traditional media outlets are struggling to capture the seriousness of Trump’s election theft attempts and social media are failing to curb his dangerous lies and conspiracies. 

Meanwhile Fox News is suddenly discovering what fact-checking means and Trump, angry over Fox’s traitorous moves in calling the election for Joe Biden, is looking to amplify his message through his own media empire. 

How has this year’s election exposed the on-going crisis in journalism?

Victor Pickard, Associate Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, and co-Director of Media, Inequality & Change Center. He has written widely about media, the news, communication, and democracy and is the author of Democracy Without Journalism? Confronting the Misinformation Society. 

President Donald Trump still refuses to concede to Joe Biden after losing the electoral college and popular vote in the 2020 election. With almost all of his legal challenges claiming voter fraud collapsing under the weight of no evidence, the New York Times reports that he is considering “one improbable scenario after another” in order to remain in office. White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro said on Friday that, “We are moving forward here at the White House under the assumption there will be a second Trump term.” The President has largely ignored the duties of his office after losing the race, ignoring the exponential rise in Covid-19 cases around the U.S., the devastation of Hurricane Eta in the Gulf Coast and the deaths of 6 Americans in Egypt in a helicopter crash.  

Among the most sinister plans that Trump has to try to steal the election is to convince Republican dominated legislatures in states where he lost to force electors to cast their votes for him instead of Biden. Although the Republican Party has not endorsed the idea, they have also not rejected it for fear of incurring Trump’s wrath. Media outlets are speculating that Trump fears prosecution the minute he leaves office. The New York Times explained that Trump, “will be more vulnerable than ever to a pending grand jury investigation by the Manhattan district attorney into the president’s family business and its practices, as well as his taxes.”  

Meanwhile Trump is raising money through a newly formed Super PAC to finance his election challenges but the money he is raising through his small-donor supporters will not go toward funding those legal efforts. According to the Washington Post, “in the first week after the election, the small print on Trump’s post-election donation landing pages showed that 60 percent of each donation would go toward paying down the campaign’s outstanding 2020 election debt … The remaining 40 percent would go to the RNC.” And then, “On Tuesday, a week after the election, the small print changed: Now, 60 percent of every donation [under $5,000] goes to Trump’s new leadership PAC, Save America.” These funds can be used for anything including travel, hotel stays, meals, and salaries for Trump and his staff. 

The state of Arizona’s official vote tally handed victory to Joe Biden, making him the first Democrat to win that state since 1996. Analysts pointed out that in addition to large Latino turnout for Biden, the Navajo nation was largely tilted in favor of the former Vice President. Pope Francis has called Biden to congratulate him, as have leaders in China. Among the very large political agenda facing the President elect is reversing

FEATURING EVAN GREER – Even as Donald Trump’s administration comes to an end, the President has revoked the term of one of his FCC Commissioners Michael O’Reilly and offered up a man named Nathan Simington to replace him.  

The five-member Federal Communications Commission, currently headed by Ajit Pai, is tasked with making critical decisions on Internet freedom among other things. Under Pai’s leadership the battle over net neutrality was lost—but advocates say that Simington is even worse than Pai.  

As his nomination heads to the Senate for confirmation, we examine what is at stake in this little noticed political fight in the last months of the Trump presidency. 

Evan Greer, Deputy Director of Fight for the Future. 

President elect Joe Biden has picked Ron Klain to be his Chief of Staff as he moves to prepare for transition to the White House. The Washington Post described Mr. Klain as, “a longtime Washington operative,” who, “has been a senior adviser to Democratic presidents, vice presidents, candidates and senators.” In a statement Biden indicated that Klain’s, “deep, varied experience and capacity to work with people all across the political spectrum is precisely what I need in a White House chief of staff as we confront this moment of crisis and bring our country together again.” Biden is still not receiving any cooperation from out-going President Donald Trump in his transition but there are reports that the former Vice President’s many decades of contacts in Washington with extensive experience are being tapped to help him work around Trump’s obstructiveness. 

Although the majority of Republican lawmakers remain staunchly behind Trump’s attempt to overturn the election result and the nation’s democratic process, on Thursday GOP-affiliated individuals began speaking up. Among them former Michigan Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, who was chairman of the House intelligence committee said, “Joe Biden should receive the President’s Daily Brief starting today. He needs to know what the latest threats are and begin to plan accordingly. This isn’t about politics; this is about national security.” Notably Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma said that if Trump’s White House does not allow Biden’s team access to daily briefings by Friday, he intends to intervene. Lankford sits on the Senate Oversight Committee. Some Republicans are also admitting publicly that Trump will be unable to challenge the election results including Arizona’s Attorney General Mark Brnovich who said on Fox Business news, “If indeed there was some great conspiracy, it apparently didn’t work…The county election official, who’s a Democrat, lost, and other Republicans won.” Just the fact that Biden won the White House but Democrats lost seats in the House and didn’t gain enough in the Senate ought to signal that there is no widespread voter fraud on behalf of Democrats that Trump and his allies continue to claim. Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said, “Joe Biden is the president-elect,” and top Republican operative Karl Rove wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal throwing cold water on the Trump campaign’s demand to recount votes in order to change the election result.  

Trump’s claims about voter fraud continue to fall flat. In Michigan he has asserted that ballots were cast on behalf of dead voters but State officials have been able to prove this is just a case of people having common names, not a vast conspiracy to steal the election for Biden. In

FEATURING TIA MITCHELL – Georgia’s Republican State Secretary Brad Raffensperger has just announced a hand recount of votes cast in the November 3rd election. President Donald Trump and President elect Joe Biden came within a few thousand votes of one another in Georgia. Just days ago, the two Republican Senate candidates Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue had called on Raffensperger to resign. 

Now, control of the U.S. Senate hinges on those two Senate seats in the same state as all eyes turn toward Georgia. The Republican Party has been in lockstep with President Donald Trump on his claims of widespread voter fraud presumably in exchange for his support of the two GOP candidates for Senate. 

Tia Mitchell is the Washington correspondent, for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She writes about Georgia’s congressional delegation, campaigns, elections and more. She is also the chair of the Political Task Force for the National Association of Black Journalists.

FEATURING CANDIS WATTS SMITH – In the days following the November 3rd election, Democrats have wondered out loud why their party did not do better in the House or the Senate. Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina claimed that activists’ call to Defund the Police hurt Senate candidate Jaime Harrison against GOP Senator Lindsey Graham. Lousiana Representative Cedric Richmond echoed this claim saying on Face the Nation, “Defunding the police’ is a title that hurts Democrats.” 

Candis Watts Smith is Associate Professor of Political Science and African American Studies at Penn State University and the co-author of numerous books including Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter.

No evidence has emerged about widespread voter fraud claims on which President Donald Trump and the Republican Party have based their delays in accepting the presidential election results. The New York Times this week reached out to officials in all states to follow up on voter fraud claims and found no evidence and in fact concluded that, “the process had been a remarkable success despite record turnout and the complications of a dangerous pandemic.” The Associated Press came to a similar conclusion that Trump’s assertions are “groundless,” and that, “Such claims have put pressure on Republican election officials fielding scores of reports of fraud that so far have turned out to be human error or limited in scope.” Even one of the most major claims made by Republicans of ballot tampering in Pennsylvania fell apart. The Washington Post examined the story and concluded that, “A Pennsylvania postal worker whose claims have been cited by top Republicans as potential evidence of widespread voting irregularities admitted to U.S. Postal Service investigators that he fabricated the allegations.” So scant is the evidence of voter fraud that GOP officials have resorted to offering up massive rewards in their vain searches such as Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick who wants to give a million dollars off his campaign money as “incentive.” The repeated claims of non-existent voter fraud have had a serious impact on public trust in election integrity as a new poll shows that 70% of Republicans believe the November 3rd race was not “free and fair.”

But a Reuters-Ipsos poll that was released Tuesday (but conducted on Saturday afternoon when Joe Biden was declared winner), shows that 80% of Americans said the Democrat won the Presidential race. Strangely the GOP does not doubt the veracity of votes cast for Senate races where the party has now won 50 seats or the House where they expanded their share of seats. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska were the latest two GOP Senators to be declared winners of their races this week. Democrats have 48 seats and are vying for both of Georgia’s Senate seats in a January 5th runoff election. Republicans have now gone on the attack against one of those Democratic Party candidates, Raphael Warnock claiming he is antisemitic because he is a supporter of Black Lives Matter. Mr. Warnock is African American. 

Meanwhile Mr. Trump, who will emerge from hiding out in the White House to mark Veterans Day, has orchestrated a high-level shuffle of Defense Department leaders that has alarmed observers.

FEATURING EMMANUEL ESTRADA – The Green Party of the USA did not fare well in this year’s Presidential election. Unlike four years ago, the Green Presidential nominee Howie Hawkins garnered fewer votes than the margin of difference between the two major party candidates in states where he was on the ballot. 

But, the most well-known progressive third party can count on one major victory at a local level. Green Party member Emmanuel Estrada, a 26-year old with working-class and immigrant roots unexpectedly won the race for mayor of the town of Baldwin Park in Southern California. 

Emmanuel Estrada, Baldwin Park, California’s 26 year old newly elected Mayor, member of the Green Party.